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Mom

The juvenile girl (it turns out her name was "E-Lizabeth") is... frustrating. The mom-not-mother of the little girl said E-Lizabeth was a "realpain". I'm still working out what that word means, but part of is sounds like "pain" which the sensation of hurting. Maybe it means being frustrating, because E-Lizabeth certainly is.

She is irritable like nothing else, and if she weren't so lazy I'd say she was like Crunch. Everyone in this little group has a role the play. The older lady, Francine, is a doctor or something medical like that. Her mate... not sure what he does, but his name is Sven and he tries to teach Lizabeth when he's not helping Francine or entertaining Dammit, the little girl. As far as I know Sven is the only one who is completely excused from the other chores.

Like I said, Crunch runs this ship. Even though nobody understands what she says, the point is made. Francine was growing mold and other disgusting stuff under Crunch's guidance. The back room had about thirty small jars filled with nasty this and disgusting that. I have no clue why you would actually want to grow rot, but they did. Every now and then they get really excited over something. Crunch doesn't explain anything, which is fine by me. Yuk.

Sidney is the brother of Boomer's dad (John). Boomer has a different name for him, Unclesid, but I think it might actually be 'uncle' and then 'Sid', which could be a lazy version of Sidney (this seems to be a lazy language more and more). The uncle could be a formality. Why his dad's brother has a formality and not his dad/father beats me. Anyway, Sidney fixes things and builds stuff whenever it's needed. Apparently the heat works because of him.

When Crunch first started working with Francine Sig cut a hole in a board a shape and size Crunch could stick most of her N-5 through. They set it across a couple of plastic crates with the N-5 stuck in the hole barrel-down. Francine and her take turns looking at stuff through the sights. I think they're using it as a microscope.

John and Irene (Boomer's parents) are scavengers. They go out and magic food and other things we need out of thin air (not really, but it seems like they do). Recently they've had to get closer to where they are, so Boomer and I drop our nightly scouting and patrol and escort them when they go out at Crunch's orders. The first time they seemed irritated that she made us go together, but ever since then they've relaxed. Maybe they thought we would hold them back or make noise or something, but I've trained Boomer well. It's too bad he's not perthu. He'd be good in the military.

Don and Ellis (Dammit's parents) are kind of a grab bag of skills. Ellis knows how to cook, and can she! I've never had plants smell so good! She even offered to cook the meat that Boomer got us... until he told her what it was. For about a week after that everyone acted really weird around us. Very jumpy and awkward. A little like when we first got here, but with less panic and more fear. A deep fear. It's not the surface scared you get when the skipper shows up unannounced, but more like the gut churning feeling you get when you realize your in the bathroom stall next to the group commanding general and last night was filled with hard drinking and cheap, spicy food for you and the rest of the enlisted.

To try and calm them down I played with Dammit and some dolls made out of cardboard and string. She had cut out a couple of new ones that were clearly not human in shape. They had teeth and lots of them, a feature the others did not have, along with roundish ears on their heads. If she was still awake when I came home I made sure to give her a hug as soon as I was cleared by whoever had door duty. And I worked with everyone else on chores, of course, which helped put people at ease, too. They've relaxed. Nobody stares when I get up to go use the bathroom anymore, at least.

Ellis can also do cool tricks, like take thick string and make clothes out of it. There are a couple shelves with (paper!) books on them, and every now and then John or Irene bring another one back. In the evenings Boomer and I don't go out we listen to Sven read from one of the books. The better I get at understanding them the better Sven seems to be at telling a story. Right now he's reading one about a guy stranded on an island. I wish Boomer and I could be around in the evenings more. I would really like to hear more of the story instead of disjointed bits and pieces.

Don can sew. Apparently that's strange for this species, but I fail to see why. Crunch thought he was useless aside from fixing people's clothes: apparently his job before we bombed the boogers out this planet had nothing to do with anything real. He was awkward and Crunch had difficulty finding a role for him to fill until she finally learned that his previous job had something to do with keeping track of numbers. Now he's our pseudo quartermaster, keeping track of what we have, what we don't have, what we should ration and what we have plenty of. He works with everyone and a lot with Crunch, coordinating supplies to those that need them and what John and Irene should focus on getting. We haven't had a "Surprise! We're out of: blah" since he started.

Boomer and I provide security. We've set up positions outside leading to the door that give us better places to fight from. We've also rearranged and built fortifications, destroyed passages and created others, forcing whoever want into our home to be exposed to our positions as much as possible. We also, with Sid's help, rigged signal lights on the roof. If Boomer and I were out escorting John and Irene or patrolling and they were attacked they could turn on a single red light and we would know to return like we should have been there yesterday.

If they were over run, however, there was an emergency switch in the back of Sven and Francine's bedroom. If that was pressed, something would break and connect all the signal lights up to a battery. To shut the lights back off requires getting to the lights or battery (the switch would no longer work) which would take a few hours at least, allowing us a better chance to notice the top of the buildings lit up like, in Boomer's words, "A Christmas tree". It sounds interesting: I've never seen a plant that could create its own light like that, and I hope I'll get to see one before I'm either killed or... I'll hope I'm killed and leave it at that.

Did I mention chores? Everyone has them, rotating weekly which ones they have and who they have them with. Nobody except Sven was excused, and even then he normally took it upon himself to find something productive to do while sitting down; like chopping vegetables for the meals. Some days he was in too much pain to do even that, and Crunch never pushed it. Nobody ever complained about it either.

Because there were so many of us living together in such a cramped space Crunch had the apartment cleaned daily. Two people would be assigned to the cleaning, two to washing dishes for the day as well as cleaning the kitchen in the evening, two for laundry, two to take over door duty when Boomer and I were out or performing our chores, and two to cook. Dammit was assigned to a group as well, though not much was expected of her, and Crunch filled in whichever assignment ended up short or in need of help, rotating with everyone else.

Everyone but E-Lizabeth, that is. I'll admit I have no regrets for upsetting her as much as I did on that first night (although I don't have any regrets for upsetting the others, either). She's taken to camping out in the bathroom in the evenings, staying up with a lantern doing who knows what until late at night, then sleeps until after what Boomer calls 'noon', drags her feet with chores to the point where whoever her partner is ends up doing almost all of the work, leaves the apartment and wanders the building without a partner, and then throws a fit about being checked when she comes back in. When we first arrived she hadn't been that bad, but had slowly been getting worse since then.

Crunch has been working hard to be... less Crunch-like to these people, but E-Lizabeth it pushing it. I'm surprised my lieutenant hasn't reverted back to her normal self in dealing with her. Maybe it's so the rest don't feel like they're being forced into obeying by teeth and claws, but who knows. I do know that it's only a matter of time before she deals with E-Lizabeth the same way she's dealt with me in the past; which is why Boomer and I are relaxing at our door positions and watching the start of another drama starring E-Lizabeth Realpain.

Today she has dish duty, which meant she had to get up early enough to wash the breakfast dishes. Crunch turned on the light and kept telling her "Wake up! Get up! You have work to do!" until the girl dragged herself out of bed, put her clothes on with the speed of congealing blood on a cold window, spent ten minutes in the bathroom before Crunch threatened to beat the door down, and was now pouting and stalling at the sink.

Half of the dishes lay piled up to the side, Crunch having dismissed John after he had accomplished half of them. I heard Boomer snicker and I smiled- John had left her all the pans with stuff cooked onto it. Don was helping with the cooking today, and he had a knack for getting lost in thought when things were on the stove.

Irene was sweeping in the dining area turned office/school/workshop. The only people who ever ate in the "dining" alcove were Sven and Francis. Everyone else ate on the floor: Crunch didn't allow any food over upholstered furniture, probably because they couldn't be cleaned easily and food grows germs.

"Hurry up E-Lizabeth," said Irene, "it's going to be time to start cooking lunch in a little bit and they'll need those."

E-Lizabeth groaned at the sink. She had put a pot in it almost ten minutes ago, added a little soap and filled it with water, and had been standing there with dry hands playing with the cap on the soap bottle ever since.

"Just bite the bullet and do it," Irene said. "The sooner to you do the dishes sooner it will be over with."

E-Lizabeth sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I know. You've told me, like, a thousand times."

It was terrible timing. Er, it was great timing if you were Boomer or me: The show was about to get interesting. If you were E-Lizabeth, though, that had to be the worst you could do in terms of when and where, sans dancing in front of a seed truck waving lanterns.

Crunch had just stepped out of the hall. Her eyes landed on the sink, the pile of dirty dishes (and lack of clean ones), and the girl not cleaning said dishes, who was perfectly dry from fingernail to shoulder and currently rolling her eyes. And then she heard the words to Irene come out of her mouth. Boomer tapped me on the leg.

"Here we go," he whispered.

I nodded; a strange human gesture, but I liked it. Here we go indeed, Boomer. Here we go like we did most mornings recently, with whatever E-Lizabeth happened to be assigned with. I saw her tense up as Crunch flew at her.

"Why are none of the dishes done? Why the fuck are you standing there? What the hell is wrong with you child? Do I need to teach you how to put your shoes on too?!"

E-Lizabeth looked up at Crunch as if she were bored with the lieutenant, despite the rest of her body saying otherwise. Her eyes popped wide with fear, though, as Crunch grabbed her by the wrist and forced the scouring pad into her hand. She was then jerked to face the sink.

This was the first time Crunch had touched her in all of her rebellion. I could hear her breathing quicken, and saw a lot of white on her eyes as Crunch wrapped her own hands around E-Lizabeth's. She forced the girl to grab the pot, forced her to plunge the pad into the water, and then forced her hand to "scrub" the pot.

Crunch abruptly let go, rinsed her hands off, and wiped them on a towel, trying to blot as much of the water out of her fur as possible. E-Lizabeth kept scrubbing, but screwed up her face as Crunch walked towards us.

"Alright, I get the picture, mom, you don't have to be so violent about it."

Crunch stopped walking and stared at me. Her expression was blank, and it was as if she didn't even see me. Evidently that was E-Lizabeth's cue to excuse herself, because she announced

"I have to go to the bathroom."

-before flouncing herself out of the kitchen along with her smirk.

Crunch spun around, stopping at Irene.

"Where is that girl's mom?"

Her voice was loud, clear, and like a boulder. This was the Crunch I knew, and the rest sans Boomer had yet met. This Crunch demanded answers and gave orders, and you better damn well respond. But poor Irene had no clue what anything Crunch said meant, only that the tone was different than the one she was used to and not in a good way.

"I-I don't know what you're saying Ms. Crunch. I don't know most of those words. Please, you know we can't understand much of what you say."

"Where. Is. That. Girl's. Mom. I need an answer. Now!"

Irene was shrinking, slowly moving backwards into a corner.

"I-I-I d-don't -I don't know those words, Crunch! I don't know them!"

"Boomer!"

"Yes ma'am?" he said.

"Why aren't you translating?!"

"Yes ma..."

He froze. Then he leaned into me, whispering.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to-"

Oh shit!

"Do it Boomer!" I said. "Obey! Now!"

Crunch's face had been progressing rapidly from a dark expression, through storming and was fast approaching "hurricane", all within a few scant seconds. Hurry up, Boomer!

"I don't know that word, Ma'am!"

"Protective female," Crunch growled, "over a juvenile. Responsible for them. Teaches them."

"She wants to know where E-Lizabeth's mother is!" Boomer said.

"No." Crunch said. "I said where is her mom. Not mother."

Boomer looked confused.

"The two words are different?"

"What you call Irene. Not what she is."

He gave me a confused look. Crunch looked like she was about detonate. Thank god he put it together last minute.

"Sorry," he said. "I meant mom. Where is her mom?"

"I-I still don't know! She hasn't said anything about either of her parents."

Crunch turned back to the living room, where all eyes were on her. Her attention landed on Sid.

"Same thing. Where is that girl's mom?"

"She wants to know the same thing," Boomer said.

"I don't know, Crunch." Sidney said, shaking his head. "I don't know."

"Boomer!" Crunch said.

"I don't know, ma'am!" He said.

Francine poked her head in from the hallway.

"What's all the fuss about?"

Crunch turned to her but Boomer beat her to it.

"She's demanding to know where E-Lizabeth's mom is."

"Oh."

Francine paused a moment, then,

"I don't think any of us know, Crunch, she hasn't said anything about them since she showed up about a month before you did, saying she needed a place to stay for the night. Why don't you ask her?"

"I will," Crunch said.

"She said she will," echoed Boomer.

Crunch turned around, her eyes meeting mine. I tried my best to give her a sympathetic look. Things were not looking good for her, and in the tiny chance we were rescued she didn't dare break that law. Not when the penalty was slow death. Not when it had been drilled into you since you were young that there were NO exceptions if someone called you 'mom'.

Which wasn't entirely true. There were three exceptions under the law. You were exempt if you were infirm, be it mentally or physically; if you were male; or if the youth already had a mom. Otherwise you were obligated and designated as the child's female caretaker, mentor, and life skills teacher until they reached adulthood. Normally it works well in our clan settings back home, and it's not unusual for the child to choose their birth mother.

But children are usually so young when they call someone that word that they don't know what they've just committed someone to. If something happened to mom however, say she died or became unfit for the role, then the child could choose another. These second choices were usually much, much more thought out, hopefully with the long term in mind, but often not.

So now Crunch was in the spot, her only hope with not being stuck with this brat being that her mother was still alive out there, that E-Lizabeth had called her 'mom' at some point in time, and that E-Lizabeth had simply had a falling out.

A door opened down the hall. I think this was a new record for E-Lizabeth: the shortest time she'd ever been in there. The urge to know what was going on in the living room must have out weighed hiding from Crunch.

"E-Lizabeth!" Boomer said as she peered around the hallway corner. "Where is your mom?"

Her face pressed into a scowl. She pointed out the window.

"She's dead. She was too cowardly to blow her brains out with my father to protect my brother, sister, and I, so her body is probably still wandering around, a slug in her head like Mike and Sarah, looking for the one that got away. Why? Why do you even care?"

I have never seen Crunch so close to breaking down. Never. Not even those first few days after we were shot down.

"I don't," said Boomer.

He pointed to Crunch.

"-but she's been asking."

Crunch didn't move. Not even a twitch on her blank face. Her ears were forward and alert. -but I didn't need any of that to know a scared perthu when I saw one. E-Lizabeth didn't waste any time laying into her.

"About what I said in the kitchen? It's called sarcasm, Crunchroll. It might not exist on the planet of deformed-cat people but it's here and we have mountains of it. Don't flatter yourself; you'd be a terrible mom."

Crunch's eyes met mine, and the "Terrifying Shark-Cat-Lady" broke into a fur prickling grin that well suited her human given title. I shifted uncomfortably in my position. Hell in one shape and form or another never failed to pour forth on some poor individual after a smile like that, usually me, and I hope I never hear the laugh that fits it.

Crunch quickly recomposed herself and spun back to the kitchen.

"Why the hell aren't you cleaning my damn dishes, girl?"

"Why do you keep yelling at me? You know none of us can understand you!"

Crunch pointed at Boomer behind her.

"She says 'Why the hell aren't you doing her, uh, damn dishes'."

E-Lizabeth's eyes went from Crunch to Boomer and back to Crunch. She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something when her eyes grew wide and she turned back to Boomer.

"Why haven't you been translating?!"

"Dishes!" Crunch said, pointing at the sink and glaring at the girl. "They'll be done before Don and Ellis start cooking lunch."

Boomer translated.

"Or?" E-Lizabeth said, throwing her hands up. "Or what, you'll do the dishes for me using my hands?"

Crunch had turned and began calmly walking towards the front door, probably to check on Ellis, John, and Dammit who were doing laundry outside. She didn't even pause or turn in her reply, and her words warmed my heart to hear. Boomer translated them for E-Lizabeth, and she stared at Crunch's back like she was staring at an oncoming train.

"They'll be done," Boomer said, "or I'll make you cry like you did when Pants cleared you our first day here."